Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: The Indianapolis Colts Now Have Sensitivity Training Classes For Fans

The Colts pre-season starts this weekend. There are some new security policies in place but one thing remains the same. Behaving badly at Lucas Oil Stadium can get you booted and banned from returning.

That may be true, but it seems there is a wide gulf in the definition of “unruly behavior.”

It’s people who are unruly, yelling, screaming, standing up in front of you and getting obnoxious, the normal stuff that happens when people drink too much.

OK, football fans.. if I were to ask 10,000 of you which team has fans who get completely out of control, the number who said “the Colts” would be somewhere between “zero” and “are you fucking kidding me?” This stupid-ass article even admits that.

While Colts fans are known for being among the best-behaved in the league, some do get out of control. According to the Capital Improvement Board, which runs Lucas Oil Stadium, last season 64 fans were ejected from the stadium with nine arrested.

Let’s run those numbers, shall we? Between the exhibition and regular seasons, the Colts had ten home games in 2012. The capacity of Lucas Oil Stadium is 67,000 fans. That means the number fans that were kicked out equals .00095% of the total. That’s less than 7 total per game. That means the Indianapolis Police Department could transport all of them with one full-size van. Let’s contrast that with Philadelphia, where the conversation about how big to build the in-stadium jail at Lincoln Financial Field took such a dominant position in the construction planning they fucking forgot to put in drinking fountains. The Eagles literally had to hand out bottled water while that problem was fixed. Think about that for a moment…in a stadium in a city where the fans are notorious for throwing batteries, they gave them two-pound bottles of water which could cave your skull right in when tossed from the upper deck.

What’s the biggest problem they have in Indianapolis? Did somebody throw a Steak N’ Shake wrapper? For those of you who don’t know, let me describe the typical Colts’ fan to you. Take the whining nature of a Minnesota Viking fan, combine it with the football knowledge of an Amazonian tribesman, sprinkle in some slavish idolatry for Tony “Bat-Boy” Dungy, and cover it all with a 6XL Peyton Manning Denver Broncos jersey hiding at least three sets of those giant, blue-veined, unisex rain-gutter titties they all have and you are pretty much there. The sports talk radio station in Indianapolis is the only one where you can actually hear somebody getting the Heimlich Manuever live on the air and nobody seems surprised.

Miss Indiana 2010 after she had gastric bypass surgery.

Let’s face it. Of course Colts’ fans are well-behaved, because 90% of them get winded answering the phone. The average female Colts’ fan has more Chins than a Shanghai phone book, and the average male Colts’ fan hasn’t seen his own junk in so long he couldn’t find it with an Earthquake Rescue Team and the sonar from “Hunt From Red October.” What the fuck are these people going to do? Sweat aggressively? Run over your toe with their Hoverround?

That’s only the first problem with this bullshit. Now for the hypocritical part.

The very same Colts franchise which is crying about unruly fans is the very same one who feeds them and gets them piss-drunk. That’s right…the Colts control all the concessions at Lucas Oil Field, which means you can forget about them ever getting rid of beer sales even though they are crying about alcohol creating part of their non-existent “unruly” fan problem. In other words, this is all a giant smoke-screen because the Colts will never give up the 100% profit share they get from beer sales.

So, why would the Colts a) cry about a problem that doetn’t exist and b) create something as patently stupid as a “fan conduct course?” Let’s see if you can figure that out as we walk through this.

As they were escorted out, they were given a letter outlining the Colts “fan conduct class.” It’s a four-hour online course which fans kicked out of a game must pay $75 to take and pass if they wish to attend future games at the stadium.

Larry Hall, Vice President of Ticket Operations and Guest Services for the Colts, explained, “We want everyone to have a good time, but never at someone else’s expense. So if someone uses foul language or excessive alcohol that would be against the fan code of conduct.

While Hall said this year it’s now an NFL best practice, the Colts were one of the original teams to adopt the rule. He said the course covers everything from alcohol abuse and stadium policies to stress management and communication skills.

“In the end it’s meant to be an educational process in which they come away with a better understanding of their behavior and how it affects others trying to enjoy the game,” Hall said.

Did you pick up on it yet? There’s a distinct reason why the Colts are doing this. If you don’t have it yet, try another few lines from the original article.

Fans attending the Colts camp in Anderson were surprised to hear about the course, but mostly supportive.

Her husband Scott Simpson agreed. “The days of the 1960s and 1970s macho fan are over and football has really spread out its fan base.”

Janice Houghton added, “It sounds beneficial. When you have people that don’t use common sense and respond in suitable ways, they might need some help.”

If you haven’t’ figured it out by now, I’ll just tell you. The Bryan Stow incident scared the shit of out of every major-league sports owner, but not enough to where they did anything that would make a difference. Their need to “do something” while making sure to not touch the profits leads to shit like “sensitivity training.” This is the product of group-think between incompetent lawyers and brain-dead executives in an exercise that marries “The Emperor Is Naked” scenarios with classic “having cake and eating it too” mentality.

You can have all the “sensitivity training” you want and it won’t change anything. The best salesman in any company will always get away with grabbing the ass of any secretary he wants because he makes money. The same applies to stadium concessions. They are always going to sell beer because the money they make it too good even after paying off for the occasional incident. “Sensitivity training” is just a way of saying “Gee, we know we have a problem, and we are sure trying to solve it by doing just about anything but the one thing we know would stop the problem.”

I’m not enough of a Pollyanna to think the top salesman will ever get fired for a little game of “grab-ass,”, and I’m not naive enough to think stadium concessions will ever stop selling alcohol. But telling me that “sensitivity training” will solve these issues is like pissing on my foot and telling me it’s is raining. The problem is that this is yet another story that shows that this country has far too many people who think it only rains on their foot.

5 comments on “Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: The Indianapolis Colts Now Have Sensitivity Training Classes For Fans”

A Plus work. You hit the nail on the head, and like I said, sensivity training is bullshit.

I was watching “Red Eye” last night, and they were doing a story about how NYC Mayor Bloomberg is now trying to ban the vapor cigarette alternatives. He’s trying to ban a product that emits WATER VAPOR. The key point of the discussion was that some of these people (i.e. politicians, pro sports team owners) are just legitimately bothered by the fact that somewhere, somebody is having a good time and that person is not them. It doesn’t have anything to do with second hand smoke in New York City or what the Colts ownership considers to be alcohol abuse, it has to do with jealousy.

The whole “Colts fans are out of control” is not going to hold any weight period. if they don’t even believe it, why should we?

BTW: Isn’t Indiana the state that has the whole law about how service stations not being able to sell cold beer? That’s why I’m a libertarian until something catches fire or I actually need to call the police for something.

And one more thing – If the Colts are such a high class franchise and they are sparing no expense to care for the fans who are either in a food coma or just stuck with a permanent smile on their face (or both) then what the fuck is the $75 fee for? Shouldn’t that be an absorbed or sunk cost? Do they have to outsource and bring in a standup comic who works clean from Ohio to do the course for them…Oh wait, you can still smoke in Ohio comedy clubs – going to have to get somebody from Michigan.

There’s something incredibly insulting about being charged money just to have the priviledge of geting into a place again. So what if you get in a car accident and are unable to attend Colts games right after the course? Do you then get your money back? Or do you have to take a separate sensitivity training for parapallegics altogether? Jesus Christ.